“For an expansion that began in mid-2009, no negative surprises are welcome. The lingering impacts of recent hurricanes and flooding have reverted back to relative calm in the statistics, meaning that this is a ‘cleaner’ number.” —Mark Hamrick, Bankrate.com

“The gain in payrolls last month was driven partly by a strong 31,000 increase in manufacturing and (rising Lazarus-like from the dead) an 18,000 increase in retail. The latter suggests that bricks-and-mortar stores had a good Black Friday….The slight increase in average weekly hours worked…also good news. Nevertheless, despite the strength of employment and the unusually low level of unemployment, wage growth remains muted.” —Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics

Wage growth continues to be moderate. Over the year, wages were up 2.5%. Combined with slowing average monthly job growth and uncertainty in health care from the tax bill; the @federalreserve needs to be slow on interest rate changes now. @AFLCIO#JobsReport

“The numbers might have been boosted by the return to work of people affected by the hurricanes, but this effect will have been small. Poststorm repair work likely supported the 24,000 increase in construction jobs. That said…the underlying trend is strong. This will push the unemployment rate below 4% very soon.” —Ian Shepherdson, Pantheon Macroeconomics

“Nominal wage growth, meanwhile, has still not picked up and is still clearly not creating inflationary pressures. The Federal Reserve should keep this in mind when it meets later this month. The Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates, but this report, while solid, indicates that it is too soon to do so.” —Elise Gould, Economic Policy Institute

“While the [jobs] gains are not exactly bitcoinesque, they are more than sufficient to guarantee a 25 basis-point rate hike at the Fed’s December meeting next week, which would boost the policy rate to a range between 1.25% and 1.5%. Perhaps more important is that the tightening labor market and the direction of the unemployment rate, which will drop below 4% in 2018, will likely push the Federal Reserve to modestly quicken the pace of its rate normalization campaign next year.” —Joseph Brusuelas, RSM

“To be fair, a good deal of the decline in the participation rate has been (and will continue to be) demographic in nature, as older workers have lower participation rates (even though their participation rates are rising, an increasing share of older workers with lower absolute participation rates weighs on the overall measure). Therefore as baby boomers age they naturally have a depressing effect on the aggregate participation rate. However, some of the decline was more worrisome in nature, as the participation rates of younger and of prime-working-age people declined, which was more of a barometer of limited job prospects than of anything demographic in nature.” —Joshua Shapiro, MFR Inc.

Mauldin is pointing out that labor is being substituted by machines as it has been for decades now. Now that the broad labor pool is competing against the capital cost of robotics, it is enough of a reason to expect wages to be undercut by automation.

Though similar charts can be shown in industries such as steel sheet, he shows how the recent frack drill crews were downsized from 20 to 5 with the use of a complex robot. These are low 6 figure jobs and require skills, so you can see how the ramp up in oil drilling with the recovery in prices, has resulted in no additional drill crew positions despite a doubling, (and now tripling) of the rig count.

Bloomberg ran a big piece on Fanuc, the leading robotics maker, and its surge in exports to China, which is now nearing 40% of its business.

@Martin Kubalanza That is a common analysis, but the participation rates at the prime labor groups of 25-54 and college grads is falling and college grads have seen no recovery at all. Working retirees actually rose strongly and have a stronger participation rate than ever.

It is that the jobs are just not that lucrative and career prospects remain weak even with organizations losing their top ranking staff, leaving a wide open jobs ladder.

Mauldin (see comment above) would . obviously point out to automation as the main factor as he quote many surveys and studies showing that marginal new work and the work of recently vacated positions is largely filled with automation rather than new hires.

Why aren't wages for many rising? It would be inconvenient to recognize that without below subsistence wages that would ensure a life of dignity and independence, many businesses would no longer exist. And oh poor us, there would be nothing worthwhile for us to do!

@Christopher Mackay Businesses already have their tax cuts allocated for stock buybacks and dividends. In my business, I'm not planning to give anyone a raise. The tax bill has been thrown together and rushed, and will likely result in many (expensive) unintended consequences. When the legislation is inevitably revisited to correct these errors, my generous tax cut could go away. It's easier not to raise pay than to call it back later.